Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: PR3D4TOR on July 04, 2015, 11:17:41 AM
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http://www.wearethemighty.com/larry-thorne-special-forces-2015-07?utm_source=WATM&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=watm_ppe
Larry Thorne enlisted in the U.S. Army as a private in 1954, but he was already a war hero. That’s because his real name was Lauri Törni, and he had been fighting the Soviets for much of his adult life.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26232318/AH/LarryThorne.PNG)
Born in Finland in 1919, Törni enlisted at age 19 in his country’s army and fought against the Soviet Union in the Winter War of 1939-40, according to Helsingin Sanomat. He quickly rose to the rank of captain and took command of a group of ski troops, who quite literally, skied into battle against enemy forces.
In 1942, he was severely wounded after he skied into a mine, but that didn’t slow him down. In 1944 during what the Finns called The Continuation War, he received Finland’s version of the Medal of Honor — the Mannerheim Cross — for his bravery while leading a light infantry battalion.
Unfortunately for Törni, Finland eventually fell to the communists in 1944. But instead of surrendering, he joined up with the German SS so he could continue fighting the Soviets. He received additional training in Nazi Germany and then looked forward to kicking some Commie butt once more.
But then Germany fell too, and the Finn-turned-Waffen SS officer was arrested by the British, according to War History Online. Not that being put into a prison camp would stop him either.
“In the last stages of the war he surrendered to the British and eventually returned to Finland after escaping a British POW camp,” reads the account at War History Online. “When he returned, he was then arrested by the Finns, even though he had received their Medal of Honor, and was sentenced to 6 years in prison for treason.”
He ended up serving only half his sentence before he was pardoned by the President of Finland in 1948.
Getting to America
Törni’s path to the U.S. Army was paved by crucial legislation from Congress along with the creation of a new military unit: Special Forces.
In June 1950, the Lodge-Philbin Act passed, which allowed foreigners to join the U.S. military and allowed them citizenship if they served honorably for at least five years. Just two years later, the Army would stand up its new Special Forces unit at Fort Bragg, N.C.
More than 200 eastern Europeans joined Army Special Forces before the Act expired in 1959, according to Max Boot. One of those enlistees was Törni, who enlisted in 1954 under the name Larry Thorne.
“The Soviets wanted to get their hands on Thorne and forced the Finnish government to arrest him as a wartime German collaborator. They planned to take him to Moscow to be tried for war crimes,” reads the account at ArlingtonCemetery.net. “Thorne had other plans. He escaped, made his way to the United States, and with the help of Wild Bill Donovan became a citizen. The wartime head of the OSS knew of Thorne’s commando exploits.”
A Special Forces legend
Thorne quickly distinguished himself among his peers of Green Berets. Though he enlisted as a private, his wartime skill-set led him to become an instructor at the Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg teaching everything from survival to guerrilla tactics. In 1957, he was commissioned a second lieutenant and would rise to the rank of captain just as war was on the horizon in Vietnam.
But first, he would take part in a daring rescue mission inside of Iran. In 1962, then-Capt. Thorne led an important mission to recover classified materials from a U.S. Air Force plane that crashed on a mountaintop on the Iran-Turkish-Soviet border, according to Helsingin Sanomat. Though three earlier attempts to secure the materials had failed, Thorne’s team was successful.
According to the U.S. Army:
" Thorne quickly made it into the U.S. Special Forces and in 1962, as a Captain, he led his detachment onto the highest mountain in Iran to recover the bodies and classified material from an American C-130 airplane that had crashed. It was a mission in which others had failed, but Thorne’s unrelenting spirit led to its accomplishment. This mission initially formed his status as a U.S. Special Forces legend, but it was his deep strategic reconnaissance and interdiction exploits with Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and Observation Group, also known as MACV-SOG, that solidified his legendary status."
In Vietnam, he earned the Bronze Star medal for heroism, along with five Purple Hearts for combat wounds, War History Online writes. According to Helsingin Sanomat, his wounds allowed him to return to the rear away from combat, but he refused and instead requested command of a special operations base instead.
On Oct. 18, 1965, Thorne led the first MACV-SOG cross-border mission into Laos to interdict North Vietnamese movement down the Ho Chi Minh trail. Using South Vietnamese Air Force helicopters, his team was successfully inserted into a clearing inside Laos while Thorne remained in a chase helicopter to direct support as needed. Once the team gave word they had made it in, he responded that he was heading back to base.
Roughly five minutes later while flying in poor visibility and bad weather, the helicopter crashed. The Army first listed him as missing in action, then later declared he was killed in action — in South Vietnam. The wreckage of the aircraft was found prior to the end of the war and the remains of the South Vietnamese air crew were recovered, but Thorne was never found.
Thorne’s exploits in combat made him seem invincible among his Special Forces brothers, and with his body never recovered, many believed he had survived the crash and continued to live in hiding or had been taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese, according to POW Network.
“Many believed he was exactly the sort of near-indestructible soldier who would have simply walked back out of the jungle, and they found it hard to believe he had been killed,” writes Helsingin Sanomat.
In 1999, the mystery was finally put to rest. The remains of the legendary Special Forces soldier were recovered from the crash site. DNA confirmed the identities of the air crew, while dental records proved Törni had died on that fateful night in 1965, reported Helsingin Sanomat.
“He was a complex yet driven man who valorously fought oppression under three flags and didn’t acknowledge the meaning of quit,” U.S. Army Special Forces Col. Sean Swindell said during a ceremony in 2010.
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:salute
This is the character of person that made America great. We took the 'what ever' from around the world and their character, work ethic and conviction made this a land of great people. If this was 1776 he would have a belt full of blimey scalps!
Perfect post for the 4th of July!!
boo
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:salute
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:salute
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Great read,thank you for posting <S>
Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk
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Holy jesus...
:salute
This is the character of person that made America great. We took the 'what ever' from around the world and their character, work ethic and conviction made this a land of great people. If this was 1776 he would have a belt full of blimey scalps!
Perfect post for the 4th of July!!
boo
We are fortunate to be able to call him an American.
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He was a true warrior.
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Finland never fell to the communists. Don't know what BS the author is pushing, but Finland remained independent.
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Independent'ish...
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This is the character of person that made America great.
Can't share the enthusiasm. I tremble to think that the kind of guy who would join the Waffen SS is the kind of guy who made America great.
- oldman
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Can't share the enthusiasm. I tremble to think that the kind of guy who would join the Waffen SS is the kind of guy who made America great.
- oldman
we rarely disagree Old but, to me at least, he was a soldier. While I share your sentiments to a degree he did die in service and, really, doesn't any soldier who is following the flag of the nation he or she represents deserve our respect and to a degree our admiration? He died following the orders of our government. Agree or disagree with those orders they're called and they go.
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He did not joined SS in 1945, he did a 3 month training period with SS in vienna in 1941 before returning to Finland but he never saw combat in any SS unit.
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From wiki:
"The September 1944 Finnish peace treaty with the Soviets required Finland to remove German troops from its territory and resulted in the Lapland War; also, much of the Finnish Army was demobilized along with Törni, leaving him unemployed in November 1944.[12] In January 1945, he was recruited by a pro-German resistance movement in Finland and left for saboteur training in Germany, and to organize resistance in case Finland was occupied by the Soviet Union.[13] The training was prematurely ended in March, but as Törni could not secure transportation to Finland, he joined a German unit to fight Soviet troops near Schwerin, Germany.[14] He surrendered to American and British troops in the last stages of World War II and eventually returned to Finland in June 1945 after escaping a British POW camp in Lübeck, Germany.[15]"
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Independent'ish...
Do you mean that any country that signed a peace treaty with the Soviets fell to the communists?
I'd say the level of independence during the Cold War was much higher in Finland than in the Eastern Bloc, not to mention the Baltic countries annexed to become Soviet Socialist Republics. The most significant difference was/is the absence of any foreign troops. The lease of Porkkala was a strictly closed military base with no contacts to the surrounding areas and very little effect to the politics. The unimportance of it shows in the Soviet returning it in '56 instead of '94.
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Still you were under severe military and political restrictions as far as foreign relations were concerned. You weren't completely independent.
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Still you were under severe military and political restrictions as far as foreign relations were concerned. You weren't completely independent.
Yes, if you mean that we weren't allowed to have submarines or bombers or nuclear weapons, or getting any German or Japanese aircraft, war material or their components according to the Paris Peace Treaties.
No, The Allied Control Commission (all Soviet) left in 1947. Notice that they represented all of the countries that had declared war to us, including Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand! Of course the Soviet ambassadors gave their (sometimes strong) advice, but they weren't always followed. If you call that "severe political restrictions" you could say the same about Mexico or any other country bordering any of the Great Powers. Today, with Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles and other long distance weapons, we could expand that to concern any countries that has been at war with any of the Great. That would make most of the world independent'ish.
If you're picking berries from the same bush with a bear, you'd better tip-toe. That doesn't mean you'd have to eat its excrement.
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The SS were beaten by the Allies because they were not good enough :old:
This guy had no loyalty to anyone.
The British who joined the SS could not be trusted by the Narzzies and were never put into active service :rofl
Glorifying the SS is hilarious, its like saying the Titanic was awesome :rofl
The way they tucked thier trousers into their boots is very alluring though :)
The whole gibberish about the prowess of the Third Reich is gibberish as well......they lost :rofl
They also had the whole of Europe as allies and they still lost :rofl
Bizman is awesome
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Finland did not by any mean fell or surrendered to Sovjet during WW2. It was very hard peace terms yes. With restrictions in the military capability (that were in many cases rounded sercetly) . But still, Finland were still an independent country.
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we rarely disagree Old but, to me at least, he was a soldier. While I share your sentiments to a degree he did die in service and, really, doesn't any soldier who is following the flag of the nation he or she represents deserve our respect and to a degree our admiration? He died following the orders of our government. Agree or disagree with those orders they're called and they go.
to be honest, he joined only after the soviets tried to get him extradited and it was the only way for him to leave.
semp
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Can't share the enthusiasm. I tremble to think that the kind of guy who would join the Waffen SS is the kind of guy who made America great.
- oldman
There is an element of revised history that has taken place since the end of WW2. I don't mean that in the typical negative sense but instead, we know much more now than we did then. Adolph Hitler was Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1938. This does not mean that Time was made up of Fascists or Nazi sympathizers, instead he was at the helm of a nation that had made a great turnaround.
When it came to the horrors of Nazi Germany most of them were not truly known at the time. Allied troops discovered concentration camps as they liberated them. Prior to this it was almost completely unknown, accept at the very highest level. In fact, even now scholars discuss how much and when Churchill and Roosevelt knew what they did.
Add to this, there are several different branches of the SS. It is easy to loop them all into one unit, and to a degree they should. The SS was a political military unit, made up of political ideologues. Among the 5 branches they had the combat branch, which this soldier join, and then intelligence units, etc. He did not join the one who engaged in mass murders.
Even in Germany it is up for grabs about how many knew what exact details. German citizens seem to have settled on the fact that everyone should have known everything, though the fact is even German citizens didn't know the full scope and horror of what their own government was doing. This is not to excuse any of it. It is to put it into context.
This guy fought in elite units similar to Marine Recon or Army Rangers. He hated the Communists who detailed horror on his land and he killed as many as he could. When that show ended he fought for the Germans, who had provided supplies and troops in fighting the Commie horde. Going from Finland to German isn't much of a stretch. And considering his background it makes sense they took his elite fighting skills and knowledge and put him in an elite unit, not some random infantry unit with fat, old men.
As for him coming to America, not much to make of that. America is the land of opportunity for hundreds of millions. He was one of the more aggressive in coming here. Several years ago Pew Research estimated that if America had "open borders" and anyone could become a citizen within 12 months over 750 million people would attempt to relocate here. Again, he was more aggressive in doing so. With his background and training I'm not surprised he joined the US Army and quickly bubbled up within SF.
I'm not being argumentative, just offering my view on this. Killing commies is killing commies, circa 1940s-1960s. The only good commie,....
boo
:salute
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There is an element of revised history that has taken place since the end of WW2. I don't mean that in the typical negative sense but instead, we know much more now than we did then. Adolph Hitler was Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1938. This does not mean that Time was made up of Fascists or Nazi sympathizers, instead he was at the helm of a nation that had made a great turnaround.
When it came to the horrors of Nazi Germany most of them were not truly known at the time. Allied troops discovered concentration camps as they liberated them. Prior to this it was almost completely unknown, accept at the very highest level. In fact, even now scholars discuss how much and when Churchill and Roosevelt knew what they did.
Add to this, there are several different branches of the SS. It is easy to loop them all into one unit, and to a degree they should. The SS was a political military unit, made up of political ideologues. Among the 5 branches they had the combat branch, which this soldier join, and then intelligence units, etc. He did not join the one who engaged in mass murders.
Even in Germany it is up for grabs about how many knew what exact details. German citizens seem to have settled on the fact that everyone should have known everything, though the fact is even German citizens didn't know the full scope and horror of what their own government was doing. This is not to excuse any of it. It is to put it into context.
This guy fought in elite units similar to Marine Recon or Army Rangers. He hated the Communists who detailed horror on his land and he killed as many as he could. When that show ended he fought for the Germans, who had provided supplies and troops in fighting the Commie horde. Going from Finland to German isn't much of a stretch. And considering his background it makes sense they took his elite fighting skills and knowledge and put him in an elite unit, not some random infantry unit with fat, old men.
As for him coming to America, not much to make of that. America is the land of opportunity for hundreds of millions. He was one of the more aggressive in coming here. Several years ago Pew Research estimated that if America had "open borders" and anyone could become a citizen within 12 months over 750 million people would attempt to relocate here. Again, he was more aggressive in doing so. With his background and training I'm not surprised he joined the US Army and quickly bubbled up within SF.
I'm not being argumentative, just offering my view on this. Killing commies is killing commies, circa 1940s-1960s. The only good commie,....
boo
:salute
Actually Törni was kicked out of SS because he couldn't stand the strict rules the germans had. He found the unorthodox methods of the US special forces more to his liking. It's said that he never acted like a superior to his troops. He always went first and if someone had a beef with him, it was handled with some booze and fists instead of bureaucracy.
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Can't share the enthusiasm. I tremble to think that the kind of guy who would join the Waffen SS is the kind of guy who made America great.
- oldman
My initial reaction was to post something like this. However, I cannot judge the man's intent only by the company he keeps. Maybe he was just a young kid that made a mistake but there isn't enough information either way.
The SS was a political military unit, made up of political ideologues.
This is the group that kept Hitler in power (at least until the end) and was associated with many atrocities. For that reason alone, wearing the uniform makes him suspect regardless of what he did afterwards.
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Can't share the enthusiasm. I tremble to think that the kind of guy who would join the Waffen SS is the kind of guy who made America great.
- oldman
For more trembles read how the three motor companies who made America great, helped Germany build their war material prior and during the war: http://www.rationalrevolution.net/war/american_supporters_of_the_europ.htm (http://www.rationalrevolution.net/war/american_supporters_of_the_europ.htm)
GM's plants in Germany built thousands of bomber and jet fighter propulsion systems for the Luftwaffe at the same time that its American plants produced aircraft engines for the U.S. Army Air Corps....
GM and Ford subsidiaries built nearly 90 percent of the armored "mule" 3-ton half-trucks and more than 70 percent of the Reich's medium and heavy-duty trucks. These vehicles, according to American intelligence reports, served as "the backbone of the German Army transportation system."
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So Henry Ford was happy about what the SS did to babies?
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So Henry Ford was happy about what the SS did to babies?
You mean the Lebensborn program? Supposedly as long as they looked like him...
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No putting them in ovens
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I have seen a picture of henry ford he looks like a nasty vindictive man, pinched face and all.
Is there are statement after WWII from him and his nasty ideas?
or has the Ford powers paid off people?
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I have seen a picture of henry ford he looks like a nasty vindictive man, pinched face and all.
Is there are statement after WWII from him and his nasty ideas?
or has the Ford powers paid off people?
Zack once more, why do you post? Are you on drugs?
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:rofl
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story reads he was one hell of a solider. :salute
zack could do his taxes :old:
1234 is a password not a name :old:
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Ford may have been antisemitic, but I don't think he was that genocidal about it. As for condemning everyone in the SS a few things needs to be understood. The Waffen-SS was only one branch of a huge organization. And while most SS soldiers were nazis some were not. Some joined because they wanted to fight with the best insted of being drafted by the Army. Also, all foreign volunteers (and in Nazi Germany "volunteer" was sometimes a loose term) served in the Waffen-SS. These SS units were the German version of the foreign legion, and again some were not nazis, but wanted to fight the communists because they believed communism was the greater threat. To me Thorne seems to be one of the latter category.
An estimated 325,000 to 500,000 non-ethnic German volunteers and conscripts served in the Waffen-SS.